White Hill
by kalim007
Summary: In a tiny little town, things start to go missing.  What could be taking them?  Does this peaceful place have a thief?  With months to go before a Herald passes through, what must they do to solve their problem?  R&R, please!
1. Small Town Woes

As a small reminder, I am not Mercedes Lackey. Thank you for understanding. I hope you enjoy my short little mystery... thanks for reading!

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Once there was a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. The town had a rather ordinary name of White Hill. It was a quiet place, and nothing ever happened there. They were such a small place and were so far off the beaten path they only saw a Herald on circuit once a year.

The townspeople were all the epitome of normalcy; not a single thing would make you think that that quiet town could have anything but law-abiding citizens. Then the people noticed that they were misplacing things. Of course at first, when they noticed the missing things, they thought nothing of it. Of course they were just being forgetful. However, they went about their normal routines and discovered that their neighbors had been suffering from forgetfulness as well, and they started to wonder. The neighbors now were people to be watched, and not to be trusted, when once the community had been so close. They looked forward to the time when the Herald would come and find the person causing all of the distress, but one had just been there, so they had awhile to wait.

There was no pattern to the losses. One man lost his glasses; another one his favorite tie. One lady lost her nicest pair of stockings, the only one without a run in them, while another one lost an entire basket of yarn! The thief had left behind the basket, but what good was a yarn basket without the yarn?

And the children noticed that they lost small toys, trinkets, really. Girls complained of lost ribbons; boys of lost carved wooden soldiers. The men in charge of the sleepy little town got together and decided to take control of the situation. They must figure out some kind of pattern to the robberies, so they would have some information to give the Herald when he arrived. There has to be a pattern or a clue, they reasoned, since the thief was only human, which meant he has to make a mistake sometime. Right? This horrible, mean, and desperate man had to be taken care of for the safety of the whole town.

After careful observation, and many arguments that further divided the townspeople, they discovered that when it appeared all the things had been stolen was times when nobody was home, or the middle of the night. No strange people were seen anywhere around, and no one had seen anything, so it had to be thus.


	2. Town Discussion

After calling the whole town together to discuss what they had finally agreed upon, and asking if there was any new missing items to report, they asked for suggestions for finding and apprehending the thief. Many ideas were entertained on the floor, but none were any good. A particularly ridiculous one came from a small boy. He said it had to be some_thing_. He said that it couldn't possible be anyone from outside the town, because someone would have to have seen something, and since they were all on edge, everyone was suspicious. And we all agree it isn't any of us; besides, someone would have seen something anyway.

This was true enough, the townspeople agreed. People used to come from the larger nearby city to visit and "get away," as they put it, to sample the delicious local food, drink, and purchase some of the pretty cloth that the town was known for, but the town had become so suspicious of strangers, it was uncomfortable, so they stopped coming. This was causing rather a shortage of wealth throughout the whole town, since everyone benefited in some way from the visitors, from the inn to the livery.

However, even though the boy made a good point, everybody laughed at his words, which made everybody feel better, the way you do after a good laugh, except the boy didn't, of course. However, this particular boy was well used to the town laughing at him, since he was very bright, and they just didn't understand how he thought. Many times he had been right, and them wrong, but they hadn't realized it yet. Anyway, the men decided that it was high time to dismiss the meeting, and set up some type of sentry duty.

After picking the men for the first watch, and after reminding everyone to be very careful of the obviously horrible man (or woman, they admitted it could be, to be fair) who was stealing their precious things, they all headed home. As each family arrived home, they almost all discovered items missing... many things, and just from the short time they had been gone! One family of four lost all the right shoes to their nice shoes that they wore to church. Other things that went missing included jewelry of all kinds, twelve clothespins, six sweaters, twenty-nine forks, seventeen spoons, thirty-two pairs of mittens, and about twenty-one socks. Nobody could figure out who was stealing these things, or even why they would want them.


	3. Confrontation

Meanwhile, the little boy who had been laughed at decided that it was high time to show everybody what was happening. He had already figured out that it couldn't be somebody from town, so he had taken a detour on the way to the town meeting. When he saw the thief, he was glad he hadn't gone straight to the meeting, and glad to know he was right. He knew, however, he would not have any easy time convincing anyone of the truth… but at least he knew.

He had arrived late, but no one noticed, as they were too wound up about the thief. He had tried to make them listen, to get them on the right thinking path, but they just wouldn't, or couldn't. So now all he had to do was to find where the thief was hiding out, so he could prove that he knew what he was talking about. He started searching, in all the normal places, like the old abandoned James' cabin, the cave near the sea, and also the rocks to the east of town. He found the thief's hideout in the rocks east of town.

When he finally found the thief, he laughed and laughed, to think that the whole town was scared of this thief! He headed back, and talked to the man in charge of the town, and told him that he found the thief. The man was skeptical, but then he realized that if the boy was indeed telling the truth, it was something to be rejoiced over, so he called the town together to go and check out the claim of the small boy.

They walked with much laughter and talking, and even singing, as they were so excited to be nearing the end of their ordeal, until the boy told them they were nearing the thief's hideout. They fell silent, and began to get nervous. Then they got scared. They were at the place where the thief was! This was the thief that had put them all in a tizzy and made them fear for their possessions! Was he dangerous? Was he crazy? Would he be so strong that he could beat the men of the town? There was supposed to be safety in numbers, but would there be?

They were so scared they almost turned right around, but the small boy kept going, and they couldn't be shown up by this boy. Especially this particular boy, the one they always made fun of, and the one who always seemed to think he knew more than anyone else. If they weren't able to be brave than he was, he who was the town's joke, that would be simply disgraceful. So they trekked on. Finally, they reached the top of the rocks, and see the thief and his hideout. They saw... but they didn't understand.


	4. What They Discover

All their stuff was piled up, neat as you please, and on the very top of that pile, was the thief... a young, female fox! She had taken all their things out of the village to make herself a nest! Even as they watched, the male fox appeared behind them, carrying more things from their homes. The nest they had made was much larger than one fox pair should need, but they looked young and probably hadn't built a nest before. They easily could have been nervous and wanted to be sure their kits had the best start to life.

The townspeople turn as one to the boy, but the man in charge is the one who speaks. He asked the boy how he had known. The boy told him that a human simply wouldn't take the things she had. Also, it couldn't be a human, because they would have noticed a strange face in the town. It had to be something else. And since the sight of foxes was common in their village, one wandering around wouldn't even be looked at twice.

Also, he added, I saw her take some of the stuff. The townspeople didn't know what to make of any of this, so they turned and walked silently back to their tiny, ordinary town, where nothing ever happened. They vowed to learn from this, and listen to the littlest ones, but they didn't. The lesson that they had learned from a little boy stayed with them only a short time. Soon, the children held the same position as they had before. The story was dutifully told to the Herald on circuit who arrived after they had solved the mystery, which reminded them that they had promised to be more considerate of the youngest in the village. It still didn't last long.

But, even to this day, there is one little old man who thinks back to that day when he "saved the town," and knows that he learned a lesson that stayed with him his whole life. That lesson was "Listen to those around you... you never know who will bring the wisdom that you seek."

LISTEN TO THOSE AROUND YOU, EVEN WHEN THEY AREN'T SPEAKING.

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Thank you for reading! Please review! Let me know what you think of this story, so that I can improve. 


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